cision on personal jurisdiction and investigative policy regarding suspect [in Case 003]

http://www.box.com/s/b21f78a6d547af27a890

Departing Tribunal Judge Calls Two More Suspects ‘Most Responsible’

Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet is expected to leave the Khmer Rouge tribunal on Friday. (Photo: Courtesy of ECCC)

Thursday, 03 May 2012
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“We’re still waiting for a new appointment of new judges [to see] whether this can move on.”

Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet is expected to leave the Khmer Rouge tribunal Friday, following a turbulent run as international investigating judge that critics say underscored high-level political interference at the UN-backed court.

Before leaving, however, the judge issued his own decisions on two suspects of a potential third case at the court, saying former navy chief Meas Muth and former air force chief Sou Met were among those “most responsible” for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge and should therefore be prosecuted by the court.

The widely publicized names were redacted from the official decision, which was not signed off on by his counterpart, judge You Bunleng. The court’s mandate is to pursue only those suspects considered “most responsible” for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Kasper-Ansermet said in his decisions the tribunal had the duty to bring the two men to justice.

Meas Muth, Sou Met among ‘most responsible’: judge

Meas Muth (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Thursday, 03 May 2012
Bridget Di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post

Suspects in government-opposed Case 003, former navy commander Meas Muth and air force commander Sou Met, are among those most responsible for the crimes committed during the Democratic Kampuchea regime, the office of the co-investigating judges decided on Tuesday.

The decisions were stamped by international reserve Co-Investigating Judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet alone, without the seal of his Cambodian counterpart.

The decisions also symbolize the final judicial acts of Kasper-Ansermet, who steps down from his office tomorrow.

He quit the court in March citing egregious dysfunctions within the ECCC.

“The judicial investigation conducted by the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges has thus established that Suspect [Redacted] may be considered as one of the persons most responsible for the crimes enumerated in the Co-Prosecutors’ Second Introductory Submission,” Kasper-Ansermet wrote in his decision.

Carr gives $1.6m to UN tribunal rocked by resignations

Meas Muth (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

March 28, 2012
Lindsay Murdoch
smh.com.au

THE Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has pledged a further $1.61 million of taxpayers' money to a United Nations tribunal that is set to allow a Khmer Rouge commander who sent two Australians to their deaths to escape justice.

Senator Carr pledged the money days after the tribunal was rocked by the resignation of the Swiss judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, who had been blocked from pursuing prosecutions of former Khmer Rouge commanders, including Meas Muth, a former navy commander.

Meas Muth, now in his 70s, sent the yachtsmen Ronald Keith Dean and David Lloyd Scott to Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation centre where they were tortured and killed in 1978.

Charges against Khmer Rouge chiefs dropped [-Comic operetta at the KRT opera house!!!]

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Photo: AFP

January 7, 2012
Lindsay Murdoch
The Sydney Morning Herald

THE Khmer Rouge commander who sent two Australian yachtsmen to Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation centre where they were tortured and killed in 1978 will escape justice at a United Nations tribunal in Phnom Penh.

Meas Muth, now in his 70s, was chief of the Khmer Rouge navy when his men captured Ronald Keith Dean and David Lloyd Scott after their yacht had strayed into Cambodian waters at a time the world was still unaware of a reign of terror under fanatical Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

The UN tribunal is set to drop charges against Meas Muth and Sou Met, the Khmer Rouge's air force chief, despite evidence of their crimes against humanity following the intervention of Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge cadre.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has told the UN he will not allow any further trials at the tribunal after the conclusion of hearings against five ageing Khmer Rouge leaders.

Pol Pot's Abandoned Airport

A Runway to nowwhere

All that's left of the airport complex

Farmers harvest rice where the airport was supposed to be

China’s long arm reached into Cambodia, then mysteriously withdrew

Thursday, 22 December 2011
Written by James Pringle
Asia Sentinel

Nowadays, Meas Muth is a high level adviser to Hun Sen's Defence Ministry, and, like others in that position, is said to be a rich man.

The vast 'secret' military airfield at Kampong Chhnang in central Cambodia, built with slave labor by Pol Pot's forces, may become a key element in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, should the chiefs of the late tyrant's air force and navy be tried -- over the opposition to such a process by Cambodia's strongman, Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Such problems seem far from this mammoth base, just 5 kilometers from national route highway 5, near the port of Kampong Chhnang on the Tonle Sap river, 60 km northwest of Phnom Penh.

Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge who defected to Vietnam, told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year that he would not allow prosecutions beyond the present case, known as 002, of the three senior and ageing leaders of the Khmer Rouge who have been in the dock. The tribunal is empowered to prosecute 'senior leaders' and 'those most responsible' for crimes committed in what was then Democratic Kampuchea.

The possible 'case 003,' calls for the arrest and trial of Khmer Rouge air force chief Sou Met, and navy commander Meas Muth, both around 70, who would be next in the dock once the present process against the top three leaders - now adjourned for the seasonal break - is complete. The new case comes under the category of 'those most responsible' for crimes.' (A possible further case, 004, involves three more Khmer Rouge cadres, one a woman, of lesser rank).

Group calls for KRT probe

Co-investigating judges You Bunleng (left) and Siegfried Blunk shake hands in December 2010 in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: Eccc)

Thursday, 22 September 2011
Bridget di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post

A key Khmer Rouge Tribunal monitoring body has again called for the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation into allegations that the co-investigating judges at the tribunal are deliberately stymieing investigations into cases 003 and 004.

Referring to a recent decision by Co-Investigating Judges Siegfried Blunk and You Bunleng to deny victim status to an apparently legitimate applicant in Case 003, the Open Society Justice Initiative has reiterated recommendations it made to the UN in June to examine “questions of judicial independence, misconduct, and competency” of the two co-investigating judges.

The woman – whose spouse was executed by the Khmer Rouge – was granted victim participation rights in Case 002 on the basis of the same facts in her Case 003 application.

Scenes From a Khmer Rouge Trial Gone Wrong

"Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea attends a hearing for former Khmer Rouge leaders on the outskirts of Phnom Penh / Reuters

Sep 21 2011
By Julia Wallace
The Atlantic

"I have no intention of going to court. I'm happy because I feel protected by the government, especially Prime Minister Hun Sen." - Im Chaem

The UN-backed trial is faltering under corruption and infighting, leaving Cambodians to wonder if they will ever see justice

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Sem Hoeurn spent three years, eight months and 20 days of her childhood a virtual slave in the service of a government she knew only as Angkar -- the Organization.

Hoeurn was 10 years old when the paranoid and murderous Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, seized power, and attempted to engineer an "awesomely great leap forward" that ultimately led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people. She was conscripted into a children's labor unit and ordered to collect piles of bones from execution sites to dispose of in nearby rice paddies. By the time the regime was ousted nearly four years later in 1979, Hoeurn's father and brothers had all been tortured and executed by Angkar, which had the all-seeing "eyes of a pineapple," as one revolutionary dictum had it.

But this summer, along with hundreds of other victims of the regime, Hoeurn finally caught a glimpse of the aged and ailing remnants of Angkar in person for the first time as they shuffled into the dock at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, where a landmark trial against the Khmer Rouge regime's four senior-most surviving leaders began on June 27. The eyes of the Cambodian people were at last on them.

"When I first saw the four accused, the bitter memory of mass killing under the Pol Pot regime came back to my mind," Hoeurn said. "I wanted to run into them and tear them apart."

Sheen Comes Off Khmer Rouge Trial [-TRAVESTY of justice by the UN in collusion with Hun Xen?]

After a handshake between Hun Xen and Ban Ki-moon, the KR trials will disappear into oblivion?

July 10, 2011
By James O’Toole
The Diplomat

In a political climate as authoritarian as Cambodia’s, it’s likely unrealistic to believe that the will of well-intentioned international lawyers will prevail over the entrenched views of the government. The court’s international donors, meanwhile, have been publicly silent on the matter, amid suggestions that they may be reluctant to fund the chronically cash-strapped institution for several more years.

The first stage of Cambodia’s Case 002 is over. But will Hun Sen stamp out the prospects of more people being held to account?

The courtroom on the dusty outskirts of the Cambodian capital may have been hosting what has been described as ‘the most important trial in the world.’ But the sheen is already coming off a case aimed at holding to account four accused of being closely involved in the deaths of more than 2 million people during the Khmer Rouge’s reign in the 1970s.

The problems in the UN-backed case centre on additional investigations pending at the tribunal. Although prosecutors have said they will pursue just two more cases beyond the current ‘Case 002’, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has already come out strongly against doing so, reportedly telling UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year that Cases 003 and 004 ‘will not be allowed.’

Now, it appears UN court staff may be bowing to this political meddling, raising uncomfortable questions for a court that was established in part to combat Cambodia’s culture of impunity.

‘There’s no question that this is a crucial moment in the court’s history,’ says Clair Duffy, a trial monitor with the Open Society Justice Initiative. ‘Judicial independence is an issue that goes to the heart of this institution, and not something that just relates to Cases 003 and 004.’

Leaked Documents Suggest UN Backing Off Khmer Rouge Trials

Monday, 27 June 2011
Article: Selwyn Manning

Leaked Documents Suggest UN Backing Off Khmer Rouge Genocide Trials

Report – By Selwyn Manning and Alastair Thompson.

Scoop Media, New Zealand: Documents leaked to Scoop suggest the United Nations-led tribunal may be backing off fully investigating crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge during the period from 1975 through to January 1979.

The documents show attempts by the Co-Investigating Judges, You Bunleng and Siegfried Blunk, to exclude testimonial information of New Zealand national Rob Hamill from being considered as evidence in Tribunal investigations.

[Scoop Editor's Note: The documents (see links to pdf files below) were not leaked by Rob Hamill, nor Keith Locke. The source will remain confidential.]

On Thursday June 23 2011, Scoop understands the documents were given to the New Zealand Parliament's foreign affairs select committee by New Zealand Green Party MP, Keith Locke. It is unclear whether the Foreign Affairs select committee will accept the documents or allow public access to the documents.

Scoop has decided to publish the documents on the basis that they are highly important from a justice point of view, also due to the fact that the decisions made by the two Co-Investigating Judges relate to the murder of a New Zealand national, Kerry Hamill, by members of the Khmer Rouge regime.

The Judges' decisions (contained in the documents) communicate a ruling on how relevant, from an evidential viewpoint, are victim impact testimonies. In particular the Judges have rejected an application by Rob Hamill to give testimony to Case 03 and 04 on the basis that the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge against his brother did not “directly” affect Rob Hamill.

Clearly, these issues are matters of high public and national interest.

Document 1 (pdf) details the application of New Zealand national Rob Hamill requesting to be party to the proceedings in Case 003 and Case 004 “for the injury he suffered as the alleged direct consequence of crimes... further to the death of his brother Kerry Hamill.

The Co-Investigating Judges ruled out Rob Hamill's application due to their definition of the word 'directly', stating that they “cannot follow the reasoning... that the applicant has shown that his 'harm was a direct consequence of the crimes...'”

The Judges also state in the documents that they were “aware that they admitted the Applicant as a Civil Party in Case 002...” but that their earlier decision regarding Case 002 was “not binding”.

Scoop understands that there are moves for Case 003 and 004 to be concluded or abandoned, perhaps without full and relevant evidence being admissible nor examined. As this aspect of the Tribunal's considerations involves a New Zealand national, Scoop believes it is vital that Rob Hamill's application to have his testimony considered be accepted and be relevant to proceedings.

Document 2 (pdf) and Document 3 (pdf) detail the reasons for the Co-Investigating Judges' decision.

Other documents (Cambodia Second-Introductory Submission.redacted.pdf and Cambodia-Third Introductory Submission.redacted.pdf) published here are important as they provide a summary of crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge during its reign of terror in Democratic Kampuchea (later renamed Cambodia) between 1975 and 1979. Millions died as a result of the Khmer Rouge's extreme policies which have been deemed crimes against humanity.

The Introductory Submissions summarise the Khmer Rouge era as:

From 17 April 1975 until 6 January 1979, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge, sought to fundamentally alter Cambodian society along ideological lines through forcible economic and social change. As set forth in the Co-Prosecutor’s First Introductory Submission dated 18 July 2007 (paragraphs 5 through 10), a common criminal plan existed amongst CPK leaders to establish a classless, atheistic and ethnically homogenous society, abolishing all ethnic, national, religious, class and cultural differences.

The CPK’s criminal policies called for the evacuation of cities, and the virtual enslavement of the entire population of Democratic Kampuchea (DK) in ruthlessly run and inhumane agricultural co-operatives, factories and worksites. Anything or anyone that the CPK perceived as a threat or an obstacle to its policies and ideology would be killed or destroyed, including all religions, ethnic differences, the “feudalist,” “capitalist,” and “bourgeoisie” classes and all perceived “enemies” or “traitors” in the population or amongst the CPK cadre.

Abandoned airfield is key site in war crimes trial

Jun 22, 2011
By Robert Carmichael
DPA

Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia - Few aircraft have bothered the parallel concrete runways at Kampong Chhnang airfield in the three decades since they were laid, and the buildings that dot its perimeter are frequented by chickens rather than passengers.

The only sounds at the end of the 2,400-metre-long main runway are the chatter of birds and the breeze pushing through spiky sugar palm trees that dot the central plain 100 kilometres north-west of Phnom Penh.

It is a peaceful scene, and one that is hard to reconcile with its history. Kampong Chhnang airfield is one of six sites investigated by the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in the trial of the surviving leaders of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government.

The initial hearing is scheduled for June 27.

Cambodian airfield key crime site in pending trial of Khmer Rouge lead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7pK3RNtZ4&feature=player_embedded

June 22, 2011
ABC Radio Australia

Next week, the international war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh will begin its second trial, that of the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge movement.

As part of the case against them, the UN-backed tribunal investigated six sites where people were compelled to perform forced labour.

One of those is a largely abandoned airfield in central Cambodia outside the provincial capital of Kampong Chhnang, from where Robert Carmichael reports.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael

Speakers: Youk Chhang, director of Documentation Center of Cambodia; Kun Nath, soldier based at Kampong Chhnang airfield

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

SFX: WILDTRACK: AT THE END OF THE RUNWAY

CARMICHAEL: I am standing at the end of a runway nearly two and a half kilometres long and 60 metres wide. Ahead of me the rectangular blocks of poured concrete stretch away into a mirage under the hot sun.

This is Kampong Chhnang airfield in central Cambodia, a place where many thousands of Khmer Rouge army personnel were ordered to work, and where an unknown number died.

On Monday the four surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge movement will stand trial in Phnom Penh at the UN-backed court. They face a string of charges including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for their alleged roles in the deaths of around two million people during their government's rule between 1975 and 1979.

They deny the charges.

ECCC: Case 002 starts amid criticism

Thirty-two years after the fall of one of the 20th century’s bloodiest regimes, a tribunal in Cambodia will begin trying the four most senior Khmer Rouge leaders still alive. But the trial commences under a cloud of controversy, with observers questioning the UN-backed court’s independence.

21 June 2011

Jared Ferrie

By International Justice Tribune

On June 27, the Trial Chamber will begin a four-day “Initial Hearing” to decide on the final witness list and to hear preliminary objections. Witnesses and suspects are due to take the stand in August.

The suspects in the court’s second case, known as Case 002 are: Nuon Chea, the regime’s chief ideologue, known as “Brother Number Two”; former foreign minister Ieng Sary; his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was Minister for Social Affairs; and Kheiu Samphan, the regime’s former head of state.

Last summer, in Case 001, judges sentenced torture centre chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his revolutionary name, “Duch”. He has filed an appeal.

Prosecutors have built two more cases – known as 003 and 004 – against an additional five suspects. But the Cambodian government has told the UN it will not allow those trials to go forward. And the investigating judges have been accused of bowing to political pressure by failing to properly investigate Case 003, thereby examining no evidence that would necessitate bringing the politically sensitive case to trial.

Leaked document casts doubt on impartiality of Khmer Rouge judges

Prosecutor and judges bought out by Hun Xen

Critics have accused Ms. Chea and the investigating judges, German Siegfried Blunk and Cambodian You Bunleng, of bowing to political pressure.

As the UN-backed tribunal prepares to bring more former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial, a confidential document obtained by the Monitor raises questions about the judges' independence.

June 8, 2011

By Jared Ferrie, Correspondent

Chiang Mai, Thailand

The Christian Science Monitor

As an international tribunal prepares to bring former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial beginning June 27, a confidential document obtained by The Christian Science Monitor raises questions about the UN-backed court’s ability to independently prosecute members of the brutal regime.

The 2008 court document reveals when tribunal prosecutors laid out their case against two former military commanders, they requested that the investigating judges detain them.

The level of detail in the document builds a strong case against the commanders, but the judges ignored the request to detain them and didn’t even summon the suspects for questioning during 20 months of investigation. The judges lack of response underscores concerns about their ability to carry out their duties. When they announced April 29 that they had concluded their investigation, many victims and observers were outraged, pointing out that investigators failed to question suspects and witnesses, or even inspect sites that could contain mass graves.

“[This] could in no way amount to an investigation in the eyes of any reasonable observer and is nothing short of a slap in the face to the millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge,” says Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR).

On Tuesday, the coinvestigating judges rejected a request by International Co-Prosecutor Andrew Cayley to extend the investigation, sparking a new round of criticism from observers and watchdog groups.

“If the judges had ever been serious about carrying out their legal obligations, as well as their ethical ones, they would be looking for a way to conduct the investigations with thoroughness and precision,” says Clair Duffy of the Open Society Justice Initiative. “Instead they've availed themselves of every opportunity to shut them down.”

She adds that it was “particularly disturbing” that the judges treated allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity with such “flippancy.”

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Case 003

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Third-rate justice for poor Cambodian victims of the KR regime: Thank you UN, but NO THANKS!

Judges at war crimes court demand retraction in sensitive case

May 18, 2011
DPA

Tribunal observers have long feared the investigating judges are trying to shelve the tribunal's third and fourth cases, which would suit the Cambodian government and, some believe, the United Nations itself.

Phnom Penh - Investigating judges at the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia on Wednesday ordered the international prosecutor to retract a statement that highlighted alleged deficiencies in their investigation of a politically-sensitive case.

In a statement German judge Siegfried Blunk and his Cambodian counterpart You Bunleng said it was against the law for prosecutor Andrew Cayley to provide information to the public about the tribunal's third case and gave him three days to comply.

Cayley's comments last week seemed to confirm long-standing rumours that the investigating judges had done little work on a case that the Cambodian government has repeatedly said it would not allow to go to trial.

Cayley had said he would ask investigating judges to do more work on the case file.

Pressure Mounts on Tribunal Over Further Cases

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 11 May 2011

"Only four people have applied to become civil party complainants in Case 003."

Lawyers for the victim participants of the Khmer Rouge tribunal said Tuesday the court violated their rights by not releasing enough information to them about a potential case at the court, which is facing increasing pressure to conduct further trials.

Controversial Case 003, which could see two more Khmer Rouge leaders indicted, saw investigating judges issue conclusion on April 29, which should have given prosecutors and civil parties both 15 days to appeal for more investigation.

However, civil party participants were not given access to the case file, which prevented them from taking “any meaningful actions,” lawyers Silke Stuzenski and Hong Kim Suon said in a statement.

As a result, civil party complainants—who are supposed to participate in trials as a means of national reconciliation for the genocide—face a “high risk” of rejection from the case, the lawyers wrote.

Under court rules, victims are supposed to demonstrate they are victims of particular crimes by the accused. But the names of the accused in Case 003 have remained confidential with the court, making such a petition impossible. Only four people have applied to become civil party complainants in Case 003, a court official said.

Press Release: Theary Seng appealing ECCC decision re Meas Muth and Sou Met; lodging new applicatio​n against Im Chaem, Ta An, Ta Tith

Civil party applicant Theary Seng appealing ECCC decision regarding Meas Muth and Sou Met of Case 003, lodging another application against CPK Secretaries madam Im Chaem, Ta An, Ta Tith of Case 004

_____________________

PRESS RELEASE
_____________________

PHNOM PENH, 5 May 2011:  The overt political interference into Cases 003 and 004 of the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”) by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the UN’s subsequent collusion as reflected by the action (or more correctly, inaction) of the international co-investigating judge, is an affront to victims of the Khmer Rouge.  We deserve more than the cheap justice that is being administered right now by these cases.  We appeal to the donors and the international community to put an end to this legal fiction that is being written for us vis-à-vis these cases—that there are two standards of justice: dignified justice for people of the developed world; and cheap, tattered justice for the poor, like us Cambodians.

On 3 April 2011, I, Theary Chan SENG, submitted a very public application entitled “Civil Party Application to Case No. 003/004” with the ECCC Victims Support Section, which was filed with the Co-Investigating Judges (“CIJs”) 19 days later on 22 April, as verbally confirmed to me that same evening by ECCC Public Affairs chief Reach Sambath when we were guests on a Radio Free Asia call-in show. 

In this one application, I publicly named and expressly hold Khmer Rouge military commanders Meas Muth and Sou Met directly, personally, individually responsible to me for the Crimes against Humanity (including the legal elements of murder, extermination, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, political persecution) in their roles as commanders of the Navy and Air Force of Democratic Kampuchea, respectively, and for their material contribution in developing and implementing the common design and purpose of a joint criminal enterprise which impacted the whole of Cambodia.  That is to say, as a matter of international law, they are directly responsible for my legal injuries during the fall and exodus out of Phnom Penh (Phase I Movement) when my father, a Lon Nol military commander, “disappeared”; and the movement of the population of the East Zone (Phase 3) when the Khmer Rouge imprisoned my family and me first at Wat Tlork and then Boeung Rai Security Centers, where I experienced and witnessed, inter alia, the death of my mother, among the 30,000 (thirty-thousand) lives estimated to have been extinguished at Boeung Rai.  Here, the legal nexus are the CRIMES, not the geographically districts and zones they physically commandeered, vis-à-vis me as an applicant, except for their criminal actions as they were related to the capture and exodus out of Phnom Penh in 1975 when we shared proximity.

On late Friday afternoon, 29 April 2011, the CIJs publicly announced the closing of investigation of Case 003 in one sentence.   

On late Tuesday, 3 May 2011, following a long holiday weekend, my lawyer Mr. Choung Chou-Ngy signed for the receipt of two separate documents (dated the same day as the closing of investigation announcement) with the decisions of the CIJs, both documents classified “Confidential”, even though the names of the five charged persons are not mentioned.

Since the lodging of my first application on 3 April 2011 until now, I have received additional information which will allow me to demonstrate legal injuries “as a direct consequence of at least one of the crimes against the Charged Person” pursuant to Rule 23bis with greater clarity the names of the Charged Persons, their crimes and category of whether they fall in Case 003 or Case 004.

Consequently, I will appeal the CIJ decisions of my one application to “Case No. 003/004” naming Meas Muth (also spelled Meah Mut and aka Khe Muth) and Sou Met with the Pre-Trial Chamber which I have until May 16 to submit.  These two military commanders are grouped in Case 003. 

Simultaneously, I will submit a second civil party application involving the crimes committed against me by CPK Secretary “Me” Im Chaem of Region 5, particularly of the mass graves in Phum Travong in Preah Net Preah district (Northwest Zone); CPK Secretary “Ta” An of Region 41 (Central Zone, mainly of Kampong Thom, Pol Pot’s birthplace province) also believed to be deputy to Ke Pauk (also spelled Kae Pok, now deceased named in Seven Candidates for Prosecution by Steve Heder and Brian Tittemore); and “Ta” Tith (brother of “Ta” Mok, the “butcher”, who died under police custody also named in Seven Candidates for Prosecution) who was CPK Secretary of Kirivong District 109 of Region 13 (Southwest Zone, where the butcher Ta Mok ruled along with his network of family members in senior positions in the Zone—two brothers-in-law, including Ta Tith, four sons, two daughters and five sons-in-law, including Meas Muth) and instrumental in the 2^nd Phase Movement of the Southwest Zone population to the northwest where he terrorized Region 1 (Northwest Zone).  It is believed that these military commanders (including Meas Muth and Sou Met) of the Southwest and Central Zones were also instrumental in the purges of the East Zone where I was imprisoned during the Khmer Rouge years.  These three CPK Secretaries are grouped in Case 004.  I have until 15 days after the closing of investigation into Case 004, which the CIJs have yet to announce.

The CIJs have woefully failed in their Rule 56 responsibility in keeping the public informed generally, and in providing adequate, timely information to victims in order that we may file civil party applications specifically.  Even with sufficient information, it still takes great energy, time and resources to put an application together for any educated, well-informed victim.  Now consider the difficulty in light of the stress of political pressure, of intimidation, of lack of information giving by the ECCC of the average Cambodian victim.  This ECCC which initially, genuinely, substantively, unprecedentedly embraced victims into its process as “civil parties” (of which I was the first) is quickly turning against victims and their meaningful participation.

For further information, please contact me at +855.12.222.552 or theary.seng@gmail.com or visit www.thearyseng.com where I have consolidated information surrounding the law and controversies of Case 003 and Case 004.

Maps of KR zones/districts culled from Ben Kiernan's The Pol Pot Regime (Click on each map to zoom in)

 

Civil Party Application Case 003-004 - Ms. SENG Chan Theary
http://www.scribd.com/full/54661373?access_key=key-u8r77cpjhg3k4cg0dh4

Case 003 and 004 heading to the dumpster, as Hun Xen ordered? U.N.justice committed in the KR Tribunal?

Meas Muth (L) and Theary Seng (R)

ECCC Co-Investigating Judges: Bandit You Bunleng (L) and Herr Doktor Siegfried Blunk (R)

03 May 2011
KI-Media

The Cambodia Daily reported in its 02 May edition that the way the ECCC is handling the announcement of the closure of the investigation of Case 003 – “at the close of business before a holiday weekend” – is consistent with the judges’ plan to dismiss this case in which as many as 100,000 victims were involved.

The Cambodia Daily also reported the opposition to the case by Chea Leang, the court’s Cambodian co-prosecutor and niece of Sok An – Hun Xen’s right hand man. In a confidential pleading, Chea Leang wrote that Sou Met and Meas Muth “worked under the orders of their superior, Son Sen. Moreover, Meas Mut and Sou Met did not have the power to order executions or torture or commit crimes against the victims because all decision to execute, torture or commit crimes were made by their superior. Therefore Sou Met and Meas Mut do not fall into the category of senior leaders or those most responsible.” On this issue, Chea Leang was in fact championing the Cambodian government’s position whose leader, Hun Xen, told Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-general, during his visit to Cambodia that he does not want to see this case proceeding forward.

According to The Cambodia Daily, the UN side for Chea Leang is of the opposite view. Evidence gathered by Alex Bates, then senior assistant prosecutor, indicated that “at least 299 of [Sou] Met’s subordinates in Central Committee Division 502, which was based at the Phnom Penh airport, had been delivered in the hands of Duch.” Furthermore, in letters exchanged between Sou Met and Duch, Alex Bates accused Sou met of “directing the interrogation under torture of S-21 detainees, seeking to know whether they had made full ‘confessions’ and of compiling and referring lists of ‘traitors’ to the secret police for execution,” The Daily reported. In other letters sent to Duch, Sou Met personally implicated others as “enemy”.

Although Duch claimed that the letters were written by Son Sen under Sou Met’s name, nevertheless Alex Bates’ records showed that “Sou Met was ‘taking initiative’ to advance the policy of purge created by the military’s General Staff and the party.”

Stephen Heder and Brian Tittermore’s legal study also showed that both Meas Mut and Sou Met “had been made aware of Khmer Rouge policies of execution and bore responsibility for advancing them.”

With the large amounts of records and evidence gathered against Meas Muth and Sou Met, dismissing Case 003 “would be totally unjust,” Rob Hamill, a New Zealander who lost his brother to the Khmer Rouge secret police and who sought to join as civil party to Case 003, wrote The Daily. On her part, Theary Seng, a human rights activist who was the first person who applied to be a civil party to Case 003, said that “the closure of the case was ‘very disturbing’”.

With justice for almost 100,000 victims at stake, one has to wonder who is  "reckless " in this case: the person who filed to be a civil party to the case or a tribunal whose potential dismissal of the case would handsomely do the bidding of the Second Generation of Khmer Rouge Leaders?

Excerpt from "Getting Away With Genocide" by Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis on "Charged Persons" Meas Muth and Sou Met

Excerpt from "Getting Away With Genocide" by Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis Excerpts from "Seven Candidates ...
http://www.scribd.com/full/52632056?access_key=key-2kkebc2xn9s4imwbevi7